Double The Pleasure, Double The Fun

We tried an experiment a couple weeks ago. On March 10th, Maurie Kaufman, Danny Gorman and Mike Small and I had a Good Enough LIVE Karaoke show at Doogie’s in Guelph, which we often do on Fridays the past 6 months, but I was also approached to help round out a 2nd annual David Bowie Tribute called Stardust To BlackStar II at the Garrison scheduled for the same night.

I don’t like turning down gigs, or saying no to Shaun Bowring, so I made some calls and enlisted longtime GELK vets Del Cowsill, Craig Mailman and Eric Woolston who’ve each played over 100 shows with me over the past 3 years, + more recent recruit Ruhee Dewji (she’s only played about 10 shows so far) on sax and keys, + brand new recruit (and Mike Small’s roommate) Jeff Dixon on guitar to play the Bowie tribute. We were asked to pull together 15 to 20 Bowie songs for members of the audience to sing on fairly short notice, but the crew I assembled pulled it together!! It was the first GELK show in the history of the band that I didn’t play, BUT it was still me who coordinated it, and I had confidence in my players that they’d pull it off. All reports that I heard back were that it went over really well.

A month from now on April 22nd, we’re taking it a step further, playing 2 full-repertoire GELK shows at once. Jesse, Mike, Maurie and I will be playing a student union awards show after party at the University of Waterloo, while Del, Craig, Fraser McEvoy, Danny and Ruhee play the Gladstone Hotel. We’ll have 2 bands each billed as Good Enough LIVE Karaoke playing in 2 different cities at once! After breaking in so many musicians to accommodate the number of shows I keep booking, to work around everyone’s availability and interest, I now have enough members to form 2 full bands each with a very very solid lineup! I’m curious to see where this new development will take us.

In case anyone asks, the current official membership of Good Enough LIVE Karaoke is:

Tim McCready – keys, guitar

Jesse Bellon – guitar

Craig Mailman – bass

Fraser McEvoy – drums

Maurie Kaufman – guitar, drums

Del Cowsill – bass, guitar, drums

Eric Woolston – drums

Danny Gorman – guitar

Mike Small – bass

Ruhee Dewji – saxophone, flute, keys

I like to imagine us as the Wu-Tang Clan of live karaoke bands. It’s like an exclusive club or gang as much as it is a band. I reserve the right to sub in additional players when needed, but the 10 of us listed are the core group of musicians I draw on when I’m scheduling gigs. I feel very fortunate to have them all in my life.